Treatment compositions, such as fabric softener compositions, typically comprise benefit agents such as silicones, fabric softener actives, perfumes and perfume microcapsules. Benefit agents, in particular particulate benefit agents, can cause creaming which is a form of instability. Polymers have been used to decrease creaming. Unfortunately, certain polymers introduce depletion flocculation which results in a water rich layer typically at the bottom of the treatment composition. Thus, one form of instability is traded for another form. Such water rich layer decreases benefit agent dosage uniformity and has an undesirable appearance.
Applicants recognized that the traditional polymer architecture was the source of the stability and benefit agent dosage problems. Applicants discovered that, for fabric softeners, in particular low pH fabric softeners, the judicious selection of the cationic polymer cross-linking functionality and level, initiator level and chain transfer agent level type resolve the aforementioned stability problems. While not being bound by theory, Applicants believe that the proper selection of such materials yields a stable colloidal glass comprised of linear polymers capable of entangling and crosslinked polymers that generally cannot entangle. The aforementioned polymers enable the colloidal glass formation, as the crosslinked polymers' interactions provide stability while the linear polymers interaction with the crosslinked polymers allows for the desired benefit agent deposition. Thus, fabric treatment compositions comprising such particles have a surprising combination of stability and deposition efficiency. Such treatment compositions provide benefits such as improved fabric hand (including fabric feel), antistatic, and freshness.
While the aforementioned compositions represent significant improvements in the fabric treatment composition arts, additional challenges remain. Here, Applicants resolved one of such challenges as Applicants also recognized that the use of a cross-linked polymer to provide product structuring and surfactant scavenging presents a challenge to the formulator in that the amount of the cross-linked polymer needed in the formulation to provide both structuring and scavenging can lead to compositions that are too high or too low in product viscosity, and/or compositions that do not scavenge sufficiently to enable a linear polymer to improve the efficiency of one or more benefit agents. Applicant addresses this technical contradiction by replacing all or part of the cross-linked polymer with a cationic scavenging agent. Depending on the formulation viscosity that is desired, a structurant may also be employed.